i simply can not get the right handling for the airfield attacks. i set AF attack and escort at 300, lower city attack, ground attack and interdiction and still can not select fighters to escort some of the strikes espacialy in the north.

i tend more and more to reduce the AF attack and save some level bomber miles for fuel transport to the panzerdivisions so they have maximum mobility in turn 2.

My current game I do just the opposite. You only need to hit soon to be overrun airfields once. If you track your losses screen you'll see that you do tremendous damage without bombing them a hundred times.

I actually spent most of my attacks on bomber heavy airfields. I ignore the fighters largely. I think I wiped out 3100 planes but 700 of these were level bombers. I have no evidence to back this up, but Im sure the bombers are harder to replace and are a lot more useful than the hordes of bi-plane fighter bombers.

No need to elimininate each and every aircraft on an airfield, You'll kill some in the air and destroy many + damage lots of them in airfield bombings. If you reach an AF with one of your units it will relocate and lose all damaged aircraft (but for some reason not the reserve a/c). You'd better not force a relocation without bombing an AF first so they'll lose all the then-damaged a/c.

I just set setting at 100 and 160 and start attacking on the ground. Once I am done all my ground attacks I will bomb air fields. Most of the SHC planes are junk and your better off letting the fighters shot them down during the summer.